Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
Many Polish towns and cities were flooded. The
political dimension to the events here was that
some of these had been sited as new settlements
on the floodplain as a strategic political move since
1945 to ensure that the border between Poland
and Germany was well 'defended' through the
area supporting a relatively dense population. The
flood damage situation in Poland was also much
more serious than in Germany because money
was spent more quickly in Germany on repair and
rehabilitation.
Emergency procedures were often deficient.
Countering the flood mostly focused on
protecting the embankments bordering the river
from breaching. The techniques were quite simply
sandbags and earth-moving equipment. But there
were significant inefficiencies and delays and, on
the Polish side, local authority representatives
waited in vain on occasions for the central
government to act, due to long traditions of
bureaucratic governance there during the
Communist era. The embankments were
successfully protected in most instances, although
some were breached (e.g. just downstream from
Frankfurt an der Oder). Much was done to restrict
loss of life, but loss of life did occur. Contingency
planning was rudimentary on both sides of the
river, but this is perhaps not surprising given the
rarity of the event and the lack of experience of
this severity of flooding in the last twenty-five
years.
Lessons learned and future plans
The floods were poorly forecast. It is clear that
many lessons have been learned with regard to the
meteorological and hydrological systems involved
in the flood forecasting and warning system. These
are now being improved, although there will be
difficulties here given the international character
of the Oder (involving coordination across Poland,
the Czech Republic and Germany).
